


Echoes

by At_a_klance (TomAyto10)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Mystery, Non-Linear Narrative, Plot, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Timelines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:12:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9275612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomAyto10/pseuds/At_a_klance
Summary: A long time ago, he was the Blue Paladin of Voltron.Now, He is nothing.Now, He is everything.





	1. The Cold Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is wrong.

 

 

 

Weight on his shoulder, a cold press of a palm and fingers. 

Lance jolts awake, looks around in blind panic.

There is no one. 

There shouldn't be anyone.

Lance curls back into bed. A dream. Just a dream. 

But the cold on his shoulder remains, like ice on his skin. 

Lance closes his eyes. 

Sleep, just sleep. 

He does. 

  
  


The castle is thrumming with when he enters the main hall, greeted by the rest of the paladins. 

Hunk greets him heartily, a proper good morning. Pidge glances up, wrinkles that cute button nose, nods, and is back at tapping at a Altean transparent tablet. Shiro, Allura and Coran are absent. 

But Keith.

Keith. 

Keith doesn't look up at him, when Lance settles in the assigned, yet not assigned seat, not when he talks ( _ lies _ ) to Hunk about the wonderful dreams he had, not when he turns to look at him, and says, friendly-like. “Mornin’ sunshine.”

Keith eats his food.

Lance grits his teeth. 

_ How is this normal, Keith _ ? He burns but this is the way they are, this is the way it is. Lance thinks about pushing. He thinks about testing. He's good at toeing lines, at pressing just enough, constant, patient, waiting instead of shoving through but Hunk tells him that they are landing somewhere soon, that “the adults” are discussing something about the planet. 

Lance twirls a spoon into his food, a thick slosh of what Hunk calls space oatmeal. It's not bad but it's not eggs and rice and beans. 

He remembers about earth. 

His shoulder dips into cold and he shivers.

“What was that?” 

Lance almost want to ignore him, because of course, it's Keith that notices. He was watching, of course. Idiot. 

He leans back in his chair and side-eyes him. “What was what?” Lance deflects.

Keith looks over his face, drifts dangerously too slowly over his collarbones. “You shook like you were freezing. You been doing that. What is it?”

Panic clenches his stomach, and Lance prays to god that Keith doesn't see. 

“I dunno. Cold.”

“You never shivered like that before. Are you getting sick?”

Lance feels betrayed, feels anger.  _ Don't try and be nice, Keith, it's weird.  _ But it's not weird, it's very much like Keith to see a problem and try and fix that problem because he can't fix that other thing between them.  _ I want to help with something,  _ the gesture screams, but Lance wishes he wouldn't. He wishes Keith couldn't stand him. It was easier when he thought that. It was also so utterly hard. Lance hates being lost, but moreso, knowing where he is and still feeling strange.

Hunk jumps in at hearing the word  _ sick. “ _ You feel sick, buddy? Is it the space oatmeal? I think I put too much of that alien cinnamon substitute in it. Should I call Coran?”

Lance smiles, a true real smile because Hunk dispels all the growing ugly in him for a moment, like throwing open curtains on a sunny day, an inrush of good that Lance can't help it. 

“Nah, big guy. This stuff is great. I'm sick of Keith though, you got any medicine for that?”

Pidge snorts from her screen, Hunk glances between him and Keith behind him, but anything that was to be said is forgotten when the room doors swish open and Allura steps in, Shiro and Coran at her sides like proper advisor and bodyguard. 

“Morin’ Gorgeous.” Lance calls out, waving and feels pride when her lips curve into a fond smile. 

“Technically it's not morning, Lance. There is no morning in space. We keep telling you that.” 

Lance pouts. “Who asked you, Pidge! Of course it's morning. We like slept for like six hours at least. So obviously, it's morning.”

Hunk spoons food from his bowl, before he sighs. “Uh, sorry dude. Scientifically, Pidge is right.” Lance clutches his chest, “Et tu, Brutus! Hunk, I thought we were soul brothers. You betray the man that gave you all those garrison cookies for a month?”

“Dude, you owed me those cookies because I helped you on your essay on quantum theory, don't give me that.”

“That's beside the point! I can't believe this treatment. Excuse me for wanting to keep alive some traditions.”

Shiro interrupts kindly, “Alright Lance, good morning.”

Lance returns the greeting with a grin and Pidge groans. “Don't encourage him, Shiro.”

“Well, now that that's settled, we have some information about our next touchdown.” Allura sounds too chipper and Lance sits up.  “If you're all done eating, we'll meet in the control room to discuss it.” 

“Is it like the last planet right? Because I'm not a huge fan of getting chased by giant chickens. I like normal sized chickens.” 

“Gynris was great, what are you talking about Hunk!? They loved me there.” 

“Pretty sure they wanted to eat you.” Pidge counters with a snigger.

“You don't know that for sure. We didn't stay long enough to find out.”

“This planet is inhabited. Sentient beings.” Allura ignores and speaks over them like a true royal, “We've already been in contact with their head of command. Zarkon hasn't gotten to them. They seem unaffected by the war.”

“How do you know that for sure?” Keith, his first words since he accused Lance, cuts into the conversation. “They have to know what's going on.”

“They have basic information about the Galra rule, yes, but they seem moreorless unchanged since I last heard of them.”

Lance always wonders at that. 10,000 years seems so vastly huge. On Earth, humans were barely slapping rocks together to make fires and here, they had space lions. What a funny place to be at. Humans, at the helm of the universe's most powerful weapon. 

Lance huffs. Maybe Keith is right. 

 

_ This isn't the time, Lance… I'm not… we can't... _

 

Lance shivers as he remembers, his shoulder burning with how the cold touch reaches out with imagined limbs. Even he feels how hard he shakes, and presses back into the chair, hoping that attention is elsewhere. 

“Whatever you say, princess.” Keith goes on. “I think Lance is getting sick, by the way. He's too much of an idiot to say so, but I'm not. How long before we touch down?”

Lance goes rigid. How  _ dare _ he.

“Lance?” Shiro always has that certain quality in his voice, a commanding compassion that makes Lance want to be like him. Even a little, to be more like him. “Are you sick?”

“No!” he blurts out, indignant. “There is literally nothing wrong with me.”

Pidge peeps up with a nasty grin, “I'd beg to differ.” But it fades away when Lance doesn't retort. 

Lance can feel the eyes on him, the ice on his shoulder bleed deeper, reaching like searching tentacles for his heart. 

Why is he hiding it? He opens his mouth, words forming like curling shadows at the back of his throat but. 

But.

“I'm fine.” he grits out, brow furrowing and he knows he might as well have - _ liar _ \- stamped on his forehead from the faces around the room. 

‘ _ silence _ .’ he hears, same voice from his nightmares. The cold grasps at him, seeping like blood on bandages. ‘ _ silence _ .’

“Lance, if something is wrong, you need to tell us.”

“I'm totally fine.”  _ Lie, lie, lie.  _ “C'mon guys, whats with the interrogation.”

“He's been shivering. Sometimes shaking. Been doing it since left the last planet.”

He feels the concern, the disappointment grow like a tangible thing, filling the room with teeth over his neck, over his weakness. He lashes out like a wounded animal cornered. 

“Shut your fucking mouth, Keith. You don't know what you're talking about.” 

Someone says, a voice layered with anger, with loathing, ringing too clear and cutting in the now familiar eating room. Keith flinches, his body stiffening in response to danger.  _ To danger _ .

Lance realizes that it was him that said that. It was him that growled out, and that his teeth are gritted, almost into metallic grind. 

Something is wrong.

No. He,  _ something _ , fights back. Nothing is wrong.

“Sorry.” he says, the word tumbling out, his shoulder flaring, and he turns to the others, away from Keith’s surprised gaze, from the way he is clenching his fists unconsciously in preparation to fight. 

“I'm a little cold. I think I got used to the heat on Gynris, and getting the hang of the castle again.”

Coran steps in, “Well, that might be the case. But let's look at your vitals anyhow. Just a quick scan.”

Lance feels his body tremble, his fingers aching as if frostbitten. 

“Sure. Yeah.” Lance says weakly. “But I'm telling you, I'm perfect.” His tongue feels too big in his mouth as he tries so hard to pretend, to reassure. “and I mean that in every sense of the word.”

It doesn't work, they laugh but it's echoed with concern, laden with a sickening apprehension. That's not the way it's supposed to be. 

He can feel eyes, boring into him, searching for his weakness. 

The others begin trailing out. Hunk clasps his arm and Lance knocks at him playfully, rolling his eyes at Hunk’s non-invasive way of asking if he's  _ really _ alright. Pidge follows Shiro, Allura, and Coran showing them something on the tablet. 

And Keith.

Keith stares. 

Lance waits, and so Keith waits. 

“Snitch.” Lance says, but it's not angry. It's not anything. 

“If you're sick, you'll compromise the mission.”

Compromise. He's knows what that means. “Wouldn't want that now, would we?” It's ugly, he feels ugly, and Lance doesn't like feeling ugly. 

“Lance.” 

And that does get him, it's pierces through, cracking through the walls he's been trying to build up. They keep tumbling, because Keith looks at him sometimes, unguarded and Lance knocks the whole damn thing himself to feel that gaze. His walls can't form if he can't fucking lay out his foundation. 

“Lance, what's wrong with you?” 

Wrong. Something wrong. Something wrong with him. 

Lance can't speak, mute and deaf suddenly.  

Keith, stubborn, stupid Keith, doesn't listen, doesn't take silence for an answer. He reaches over and touches his shoulder in the way Shiro does.

Lance cries out, his skin flaring when the gentle impact is like pressing up against red hot stones, and he yanks himself away, pain shooting,  scattering his senses and his instincts yell in self preservation. 

He stumbles backs, the chair rolls away and he falls on his ass. 

Keith is there, over him, between his bent legs, clutching at his arm, pulling at his shirt and his eyes are narrowed as if Lance's body is the enemy, as if the traitor is the vessel that contains his soul. The blue sleeping robe’s neck gives easily, and Lance doesn't fight, he can't catch his breath. 

His shoulder is unmarred, like Lance knew it would be. There is nothing there save a little scar from a rock’s impact when he tumbled surfing once. 

Keith lingers still. 

His mother told him that she had not fallen in love with his father very quickly. She liked him, his eyes, blue gems made beautiful by the long curled lashes, his smile that lit a room. But, she would say fondly, as she looked at her husband over the breakfast table, it was not love till much much later on. When she would feel his presence and know that she was safe, she was loved, or when they would fight, a crash of intensity and violence and still feel the want for him, the need. 

Love is when they can hurt you enough to die with just one look.

He doesn't love Keith. No. But when Keith glances from his shoulder, to meets his eye, the moment heavy with an eternity of memories and words and feeling and desires, and then turns away, Lance thinks he might be toeing lines again. Too close. So close that his throat closes on a sob. 

“Satisfied?” he says, because comfort is in speaking, filling the empty air with something,anything. “I'm fine.”

“You're not. Lance, you're not.” Keith sounds frustrated, glaring at the palace floor. “I know you, Lance. You're not-”

They were, they  _ are _ , close. Rivals, teammates, friends, finding the unraveling places in each other so that they can mend them. Lance leans in, feels Keith stiffen, but not move. “Relax. I'm not going to kiss you, man.” Keith glares harder at the innocent floor. “I don't know what you're talking about. Honest. I feel fine.”

“And your shoulder?”

“You scared the crap out of me. And-” he glances at Keith’s fingers pulling at his shirt neckline. “I thought we said we wouldn't touch.”

Keith doesn't move, the tips of his fingers rough and almost unpleasant on his skin. Lance craves more. 

When Keith moves away, he removes himself  entirely, Lance almost suspects him to leave the room. But he only steps back and crosses his arms. 

He doesn't look like he believes a word of what Lance claims. Lance's doesn't seem to find it in himself to care.

Lance jumps to his feet and tries to hide his hands but the sleeping robe has no pockets. He cracks a joke. Keith doesn't smile. 

“Well, I'll see you.” Lance says, and turns. Keith follows him, muttering darkly. “Medbay first.”

Keith doesn't let up. 

“Whatever. They're not going to find anything,  anyways.”

And they don't.  

Because there is nothing wrong.

* * *

* * *

 

The boy laughed and he knew. 

_ Wicked,  _ he told himself.  _ Bare it, you coward.  _

But the boy laughed, and the other one clad in yellow smiled, even though he buzzed with panic, even though they were hiding from an odd unflattering death of being pecked to death.

He knew. 

It had been so long, he had been burdened for so long. 

He pulsed once, a simple action but the beasts fled in wise haste and the two young ones stood up, watching them flee and whooped when they realized they survived 

_ It's time. _

He fought with himself. It’s selfish, It's selfless. He wouldn't wish this on his most hated enemy, but the universe throttled inside him and he knew. 

He reached out, shimmering in light and pulses, invisible and touched the boy on the shoulder. 

Warm. 

_Finally_.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates @storiesbyTom


	2. Ripcord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Find me.
> 
> The voices scream again, and though Lance drags his feet, to the abyss he goes nevertheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written before 2nd season, and therefore only compliant with season 1 canon.

Savanah had felt her whole life that she was abandoned by her  _ Pantali _ , her Lifegivers. They had left her in the mud at the edge of the mountain, where all the abandoned go. Some of the abandoned believed their Pantali would return, they wanted to survive until the lights came upon the mountain again to reclaim them.

Savanah was not such a fool.

She hurries through the tall yakan field, brushing away the grasses moving tingling yellow arms as the man walks through the path. 

He is silent, the robes that he wears makes him an easy target to follow. It's a strange color, reminds her of cold nights and shivering in the mud.

_ Echoes _

The others told her not to go, for following the man was dangerous. Hewas not… like them. 

But Savanah felt when his eyes fell upon her, that this man was the universe. She was a child, and yet she knew. 

The man stops, turns, and his strange eyes look straight at her. She stills, like her bones have been turned to mountain rock, unmoving. 

His eyes glance over her, even though she knows he can not see her. Her skin bleeds into the yukan grass, the same sun shades, her eyes a cloud white. In the wiggling field, he should not be able to see her. 

But the man's strange face, his beautiful strange eyes look at her, and she fears. 

She was wrong, she is a fool.

“Why are you following me, little one?”

Savannah covers her neck, muffling her breathing but the man only cocks his head and waits. 

Savannah moves one leg, then another, than the other two, standing so that the top of her head and eyes clear the tops of the grass.

“You are Echoes.” she says instead, and wonders if he can understand her words.

His eyes, that color that cools her skin, focus on her face, than he looks down the path back to the mountain. 

Then, his face splits, and something like white stones show in the split, shines like jewels in the sun. He looks strange, so strange but she is blinded by it. It's like the lights touching the mountain. She can't look away. 

“I am going to the city.” he says. And then turns away, headed into the underbrush.

Savannah walks carefully out of the yellow field, and follows the man. 

She wants to see his eyes, inspect that split of his face closer, but even foolish young thing she is knows that Echoes is greater than any Lifegiver, and more dangerous than an angry mountain. 

“Are you coming to the city too, little one?”

Savannah creeps closer, a four leg leap away, and the ends of his robes look like the satin web  of leafspiders, soft and decadent, that same cold color.

“I want to follow Echoes.” she says, and takes another stride forward, close enough that she could reach out with her tail and wrap it snug around his waist. She is small, but her tail is the strongest among the abandoned. 

“You want to follow Echoes.” The man repeats, and then turns to look over his shoulder, “Do you want adventure?”

“I do not. I know you are greater than the mountain. I saw you in a dream. You are Echoes.”

The man stops, and Savannah, lost in her thoughts, narrowly avoids colliding into him. 

He turns again, and this time his eyes are sharper, like little blades of the wicked plants that live under mud planes. They tear you to the bone if you get too close. Savannah feels her belly go cold as the color in those eyes. 

“Are you telling children of me now?” he says, but it is not to her, and in relief, she sees his anger is not at her either.

The wind twirls the yakan field, and then stillness settles over the plains.  The twisting arms of the land freeze and the man looks to the sky. The mountain is puffing out dark angry clouds, perhaps in distaste for the being that in on its land, more powerful than even it. Savannah breathes shallow, frightened again. 

“Come then. Since its already decided that you join me.” He moves forward, his robes shift and he juts out a hand, bare to the shoulder.

Savannah turns away, but her tail flickers, and she shyly puts her own hand into his. 

It's looks strange, the yellow translucent of her skin against the mountain rich color of his. 

“We have a long journey, Savannah.”

She doesn't question when he says her name, and doesn't take her hand back either. 

They begin into the forest, and disappear into the darkness, hand in hand. 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

The people are kind here. They are tall, with upside down pale oval faces, like a flattened seashell. It's strangely beautiful when you can get past their four slitted eyes, and diamond red mouths. 

Lance does, Keith notices, all too quickly, like water spilling from a crack, seamlessly fitting like he's an old friend. Acceptance bleeds from him like it's desperate to get out.

Keith doesn't have the same prerogative. He stands guard, watches his team, but the majority of his gaze is on Lance. Today, it's not for the reason it usually is though. His eyes keep seeking out that spot on his shoulder, where Lance had clutched in pain, had denied existed.

What a fucking idiot. 

Keith understands keeping secrets. Telling people things makes you vulnerable, exposes you and makes you need. Needing people is dangerous when they can disappear into thin air. 

Like Shiro.

Like everyone that Keith seems to love.

But Lance doesn't keep secrets. He tells everyone his entire life story from beginning to end if they dare stay long. He's long winded and can talk about himself for days on end.  He calls friend to all, and his arms open too easy, exposing the vulnerabilities of his heart to anyone. It's the most annoying thing Keith has ever encountered but it's so comforting, so good that Lance is as open as he seems. 

So Lance lying to him, hiding something from him, leaves Keith with the bitterness of betrayal on his tongue, heavy on his gut. 

The Salua’eta, with their quiet chirping words that ring the translators in their ears, tell them that they are welcome to stay at the old ambassadors castle. 

Shiro and Allura tell them that they will stay, and Keith almost disagrees. Shiro is also tense, but he listens to Allura, heeding her commands easily. Lance, showing off, learns some of the chirping words and repeats then with enthusiasm. The Salua’eta around him giggle.

Moron.

The ambassadors castle is a doorless building. The Salua’eta do not believe in ownership, and the rooms that all meld into one other show that clearly.

Keith picks the room farthest from Lance, and Lance doesn't comment on it. 

Keith misses his attention. 

The conversation in the castle is still too much, the foreign growl of Lance's voice back then still makes Keith tense when he thinks on it.

That wasn't Lance, Lance  _ would _ never…

But Lance is so far away now, and much as Keith wants to be close, he can't, he won't. 

They’ll make mistakes, they'll become distracted. He can't be distracted. 

But. 

He sometimes felt like he was the center of Lance's universe, and now, he realizes how much he loved that. He loved being able to say a word and have Lance dropping everything to reply, how he would always enter a room and feel deep ocean eyes on him. The world was so suffocating and overwhelming, one could get lost. 

But with Lance, he never felt forgotten. 

And now, he remembers what it feels like. 

The night falls on them, dinner is a diplomatic affair where they are overjoyed on having true edible food. Lance charms, shows off his new found mastery of the Salua’eta language, and the tension from breakfast is almost forgotten. 

Not for Keith. 

He watches, Lance shivers again and again. He knows that movement, felt it under his hands, knows that Lance trembles when overwhelmed with sensation, his body always honest, always says the truth. 

He stares at the marked shoulder, where a  scar marrs beautiful skin, and Keith can still feel the line of that scar against his mouth, from before, can still remember how Lance feels, trembling and shivering and warm under his hands. 

 

Keith pushes the image away and eats.

 

Later though, when the rest of Voltron is listening to stories of the Salua’eta, Keith retreats to his room, and there he reflects. 

Lance is fading from him, is changing and Keith hates it. 

He's lying and Keith hates it. 

Keith fades into restless sleep, his fingers grasping at air, at phantom sensations from his memories, and his mouth filled with bitter betrayal and the honey sweet of scar crossed skin.

..

 

He wakes to screaming.

 

The screaming rings and rings, and Keith has a blade in hand and rushing down the hall before he's fully awake. He almost crashes into Hunk, who look frightened and tense when he rushes into the hallway.

“Who-” But Keith rushes past him, and turns into Lance's room. 

He knows who it is, the pitch of his voice, recognizable from all the time he's listened his laugh, even in the bastardized form of a scream, he knows. 

Lance is in his bed and to Keith’s great surprise, there is no enemy sinking a blade inch by inch into him, or any cruel villain slicing flesh from his bone. 

Lance is screaming, sobbing like he's giving birth to pain itself, but asleep. 

Dreaming. 

Nightmare.

Keith kneels by his bed, shaking with how his breath rattles frightened at such intensity. He almost wishes there was an enemy, something tangible to fight. There is hollow in his chest.

Lance is curved on his side, his screaming is never ending, long and echoing like a terror alarm at the garrison, his shoulders shaking, and Keith trembles like a freezing man as he tries to get Lance to turn over to face him. 

“Wake up.” he says, but his throat is closing up on empathy and he only whispers. 

Figures hover behind him, he's knows it's friends but his hackles rise. 

“Lance!” he finally bursts out and roughly pulls at his arm, twisting forward and Lance ends up on his back.

His face is sickly pale, his eyes wide open and if being electroshocked into that state. His mouth open on a scream and water flows from his eyes.

But worst of all, Lance is dead cold. He's slick with sweat but his skin has no warmth. 

Lance claws at him, his fingernails catching on his skin, Keith automatically fights back, pushing Lance back as he sobs through another wave of earsplitting screaming. 

Hunk helps him, grabs onto legs to secure them his face pale and Lance kicks at him. 

“Wake up! Lance, it's a-” he slaps out another hand, grabs at Keith’s hair and pulls like a dying man. 

He's shouting now, frantic and his words are not clear, a mix of two languages, the familiar syllables of earth English and the flowing rolls of Spanish, chanting and yelling. 

Lance's eyes are open, his pupil almost nonexistent, and that scares him more than anything. Looking into Lance's face, sweating and pale and in pain but his eyes being blank, his eyes looking at Keith and seeing nothing in them. 

 

Once, at the garrison, during flight training, they learned about emergency landings. If a ship were to go down, they needed to know how to make a safe landing. 

Keith had thought, at the time, that he wouldn't have to  ever worry about that. 

When he jumped out of the plane that day though, and pulled his ripcord, he understood why. 

The ripcord came loose in his hands, and though he had been fine with the rushing air around him the swooping in his stomach a second ago, suddenly, everything changed.

Shiro had saved him, shared his parachute and landed them safely. There was an investigation that led to nothing more than wear and tear.

But Keith would never forget it. 

The feeling of fear so dark and deep that he was  haunted, fear that eat up all hope, all good. 

Keith feels it now. 

He's going to lose Lance. 

Keith pulls a fist back and punches him as hard as he can. 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 

“Here again?”

Lance looked over his shoulder. Keith was standing at the door, so silent that Lance wondered if he wasn't a figment of his imagination. He wasn't wearing the castle's paladin sleeping wear, just his back shirt and jeans. 

“The training hall was occupied by some lame mullet head. This was obviously my second option.”

Keith snorted, and Lance was happy he seemed to be a good mood. He didn't want to go at it right now. 

Keith came up behind him, and then after an extremely awkward moment, he sat down. Lance side-eyed him. He must've been feeling lonely, to come to Lance, and Lance weighs on what to say. Keith makes the choice for him. 

“Do you wanna go back to earth?”

Lance went still.

“Um. Yeah?” he said, almost felt incredulous at the question and then looked over to him, regarding his face. “Don't you?”

Keith looked tired. He looked stretched out, worried. Training must help with that but now his face was closed off. It told him that the training was to fight off something, something worse than fatigue.

“I-” 

He hesitated. He looked out to the hologram lights of the the stars, and Lance could see that he spotted the milky way. 

“I don't really care.”

And he sounded like this was a revelation to even himself. 

Lance couldn't help his surprise, and he didn't do well with lying anyways. 

“You don't care if we never see earth again?”

“We have a whole universe to save, Lance. We're Paladins of Voltron, chosen to be Voltron.  Does anything else really matter?”

“It does to me.” Lance almost growled out. “I miss my family, Keith. I miss earth.” 

And he did, it was a bone deep ache of homesickness that chipped away at him. He missed being young, missed feeling loved. 

Keith looked stricken, and he turned away. “Yeah...sorry. I know.” he sounded subdued. “I know that.”

Lance sighed. “Did your life suck or something. Is that why?”

Keith shrugged, “I don't know. I guess. There isn't anyone back there that I would leave here for.”

Lance, in sudden suffocating affection, leaned into him, knocking into his side. Keith, the fool that he was, took it as aggression. He scowled.

Lance ignored it. 

“Ever been swimming at a beach?”

“No.”

Lance sputtered. “Are you kidding? Ever been  _ to _ a beach.”

“I lived in the desert. The opposite of a beach.”

“Cheese and rice, Keith. We need to get you to a beach. Anyways, story time. One time I went surfing, and it was dumb, I was like twelve right and I thought I could surf just fine. But I had never gone out by myself.” 

Keith let out a long sigh, but he leaned back on his hands and gave him his full attention. 

“So, we get beautiful tourists from everywhere now, and there was these girls from somewhere and I told them about a local spot near my house.”

“Typical.”

“Shut your piehole for a sec okay Mullet I'm telling a story. Anyways, they wanna go night surfing which is really dangerous but I go because they're  gorgeous ladies and I'm twelve. I didn't know  any better.”

Keith’s mouth twitched and Lance felt strange elation at that. He went on, more excited than ever. 

“So I take ‘em to the spot and we start surfing but the tides get wild and I go too far out because I'm showing off my awesome skill. I get caught in a wave, and dude like, it was the scariest moment of my life because I know about the cliff and if I can't get back on my board, I'll get crushed.”

Lance paused for breath, and took note that Keith was sitting forward, absolutely entrenched in the story. 

“And then?”

“I hit a rock. More like crash landed into it. It was insane. I broke my collarbone. Look.”

Lance tugged at his sleeping wear, and pointed out a scar that ran across the sharp bone, closer to the shoulder, a shade lighter and raised against the expanse of skin. 

Keith zeroed in on it with strange intensity. 

Lance closed his eyes, remembering the moment seeming like so long ago, seeming like yesterday. 

“I was drowning. Like, the pain was so bad that I couldn't move my arm or legs to swim. I kinda figured I was gonna die. I felt so dumb.” 

The waters had filled him, waters he adored and knew, was born in, they attacked him now, like an enemy. 

Drowning hurt so terribly.  

It was no quiet descent into depths. His body had convulsed, his lungs trying to shake themselves free from the prison of his ribcage, get to the surface at whatever cost.

“I made a deal with god. Like I tried to. Mostly begged. I guess it worked because the next morning, they found me on the beach alive.”

Lance swallowed around the growing lump in his throat.

“My mom cried for days when I was in the hospital. She was pissed, and I was super sorry. I kinda promised that I wouldn't do dumb things like that.”

Keith was almost wide eyed, staring at the scar and then his eyes flickered when Lance let the collar go. 

“All that because you wanted to impress girls.”

“Of course. You would've done the same, right?”

“No.” Keith said immediately. “Not really into girls.”

Lance huffed in disbelief but then he understood. He looked over to Keith, whose eyes were focused far off and his shoulders tense.

“Well.” Lance felt himself say, in some desperate attempt to ease the stiffness of the other's shoulder. “I'm into literally anything that give me attention.”

Keith’s shoulders eased. 

“That's sounds like you.”

Lance moved to imitate Keith’s stance, leaning forward on his knees, looking out to the dead void of space. It really did feel like being at sea, safe on board but the moment that you left the ship’s confines, death was imminent. Lance remembered his grandmother telling him stories of her survival, of being on a tiny rowboat, waiting for death before she washed ashore on Florida's beaches. 

“And so, that was the time I almost died. I bet you can't beat that.” 

“This isn't a competition.”

“It is and I won.”

“Okay, if this was a competition, I would win.”

Lance sat up. 

“You would not! You had a worst near life death experience?”

Keith actually chuckled, eyes gleaming. “I wrecked my bike when I was 15 and broke half the bones in my body. Ruptured my liver. Almost bled out.”

Lance gaped at him. 

“That's sounds so traumatic.”

Keith has the balls to shrug. 

“Yours did too.”

Lance laughed, and kept laughing. “I can not believe you just had to one up me! I'm so mad at you!”

Keith joined him, a gruff low noise that sounded repressed but then he burst out, like a dam. It's was almost strange, to see his face open and free like that.

It felt good. It felt right.

They settled back into awkward silence after, and words didn't seem necessary but to Lance, they were always necessary. If he kept them in, they would buzz and bounce in his mind and threaten to turn savage and overwhelm him. 

“Anyways.” Lance began, more muted, softer. “I was telling you because I need to go back to earth. My mom… she probably thinks that I did something dumb, even though I promised I wouldn't anymore. I need to make sure I tell her that I'm you know, defending the universe. That I kept my promise.”

Keith didn't say anything for a moment, than two, the silence in which a reply was wanted ticked by and Lance began to feel stupidly foolish. 

“You aren't keeping your promise, though. You almost died up here, Lance.”

Keith sounds… odd, his voice is so soft, almost trembling. 

“What are you talking about?”

“You could've died, getting hit by that bomb?”

Lance frowned. 

“Yeah but that was…” That wasn't dumb. That was just, instinct, reaction. Save Coran, just… help.

“That was unavoidable…”

“No, if I were paying attention, I would've seen that something was wrong. Shiro was already worried about security but I didn't… I was having fun. If I would been on guard too, you wouldn't have gotten hurt.” 

Lance watched as Keith hunched in on himself, watched how the weight of the world fit itself over his shoulders like it was used to being there, watched as he closed off. 

Lance reached out and stopped the gate from snapping shut.

“Are you seriously trying to take my shining moment from me?”

Keith’s head spun around, wide eyed at him. 

“What?”

“Listen, Mullet, this is a team right? So stop trying to save the universe all by yourself. I know I'm not as selfless as you, and not the best pilot but at least I don't have a mullet and I actually care about my skin, which I should say, we need to talk about because, man, you really need to-”

“You are selfless.”

Lance broke mid-conversation, frowning at him. 

“Uh. Okay. Thanks?”

“No, listen. You are… you're good. Selfless. I'm not- I…”

He floundered, but his eyes were intense, as if he was adamant he make his point clear. 

“Okay! Got it! I'm the best thing that's happened to the universe, thanks for reminding me.”

Keith looked offended, but then pleased, and wasn't that an odd reaction. 

They came to silence again, the third in their group, familiar as a friend. Lance didn't try and brush it away this time, instead focused on how Keith seemed better, his hands unfurling, his mouth trying to push away a smile that was fighting to show itself. It was like watching mutiny. But then the smile was chased away and Keith frowned hard. Lance braced for impact. 

“You'll go back to earth.”

Lance, though he attempted to be prepared, still hadn't expected it. 

“Um. Yeah, man. I hope so.”

“No, I mean I didn't care before. But, we're a team, right? So if you want to go back to earth than I should care.”

Lance felt a sudden bloom of warmth over his cheeks, like drinking in his grandmother’s rich creamy atole, heat filling him all the way to his toes. His grandmother used to say that he was feeling her love.

He looked at Keith, feeling his love. 

He had missed feeling loved. 

“Uh. Well. Thanks. And when we do go back, I'll take you surfing.”

Keith’s smile was small, but it seemed to shine, like those first bright rays of sunshine over the beach, that type that took your breath away and made you feel alive. 

“So!” Lance started, excited and feeling so very close. He leaned into Keith, grinning. “Wanna hear another story?”

Keith groaned, but he shifted his weight, and leaned back into him. 

Gravity.

Lance thought this was better, they could share the universe's heaviness together. 

He began talking about a damn cow that he and his siblings knews was possessed by an ancient spirit. He told him about the dog that stayed with them for a couple of months, eerily smart and the day his little toddler sister went missing and how that strange mangy stray brought her back home. He had disappeared the next day.

His mom told him that he was probably an angel. Lance to this day, believed that with all his heart 

He told him about the frist girl that ever kissed him, a blonde tourist who leaned over and pecked him on the cheek, payment for a serenade on his guitar in the town square. Keith had laughed and told him that that didn't count. Lance refused to acknowledge his reasoning. He told him about when he jumped of his first cliff, a dare from his older sister’s boyfriend at the time and the massive crush he had on him. 

Lance was talking about the time he first saw space cadets from the base on Cuba when Keith leaned over and kissed him. 

It was just brief faint contact, like fluttering leaves falling from trees, brushing against his lips. 

A kiss. 

Lance felt his heart stop, his breath got caught inside, like his lips had suddenly been sealed. 

And Keith.

Keith looked soft and savagely overwhelmed. He lept to his feet, skittered back, a newborn on his first steps, his eyes panic wide, alarmed. 

Lance, frozen still on the floor, watched, not comprehending anything in this wide universe. 

“Keith?”

He called, but his voice sounded weak and confused. 

Keith didn't look back, he left the control room in silence. 

Lance huffed out a breath, and absently said, eyes blinking in the false lighting of the hologram universe. 

“I didn't even get to finish my story.”

..

 

Lance was true to his word.

He realized that as the next weeks passed.

He really did like anything that paid attention to him.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 

His mother stands on the other side of the cliff. 

She waves and Lance crawls to the edge, the dirt crumbling under him. His stomach swoops as he looks down.

_ Coward _ . 

He hears. It's the voice from the cold. 

_ You will not be weak _ .

Lance looks down to the dark. _ I am weak, _ he trembles, tears sliding down his face, dripping to the dirt floor. The ground takes his tears, like blessed rain, parched for sadness. 

His mother waves, but then she's turning away, and Lance screams and screams.

“Dont! Don't go that way! Please. No! No!”

But his mother walks, her steps familiar, her gait the same, her white laced brown hair up in a bun, a habit of having babies to care for her whole life. 

Lance gets to his feet, stretching out over the darkness, yelling in every language he can, but the weight of the air becomes hands that wrap around his throat, rip into his lungs and stop his breathing.

He sees the car, zooming out of thick purple fog, and he yells, sobbing, feeling his joints break apart.

Lance knows. 

He won't make it, the voice says,  _ watch and feel _ , it tells him, but Lance does not. 

He leaps, and he falls into darkness.

..

 

He wakes on the cliff again. 

Again and again and again. 

Each time his mother is hit by the car. And he leaps into the abyss, never able to not do anything. 

Insanity.

And then, once, he wakes on the cliff and his mother's isn't on the other side, there is nothing there but that revolting purple fog, and Lance gets to his feet quicker than any other time. 

“Mami?” 

But his voice is too muted after all his screaming. 

The fog curls, like the puffs from his father's cigars.

The silence is so thick, Lance feels like he's drowning.

Then.

_ Look for me. _

A voice echoes from around, from inside, like the air itself is speaking. 

He feels pushed to the cliff end, but he pushes against it, refusing.

The smoke shifts, and his mother stands there, and Lance shakes. 

_ Stop _ . He thinks.  _ Please stop _ .

She disappears, and in her place, Hunk materializes, his smile so bright, that Lance steps forward. Hunk always meant safety and acceptance. He'll tell Hunk, about his shoulder, about his dreams about the cold, when he free from here.

Hunk fades, and Lance chokes back his name. 

The smokes rises, and then...

Keith.

Keith doesn't smile, he doesn't move. 

Lance swallows hard against the dread that forms in his throat. 

Keith is in his garrison uniform, looks young and cold. It's from when they first met. When Lance had reached out a hand and Keith had slapped it away. He understood now why, that Keith was wrestling with so many demons that he didn't know how not to bite. 

But this Keith holds out a hand, in the same way Lance had, and Lance feels his entire body shift forward when he sees that hand. 

But he can't, the abyss between them. 

_ Keith, please understand, please I cant _ .

Keith pulls his hand back and shrugs. Lance sobs, kneeling at the edge. 

Keith turns away, and fades into the fog. 

Lance cries so hard that he passes out. 

..

 

When he wakes again, he’s at the cliff. 

There is no silence this time, mournful sounds as assault his ears, they deafen.    
_ Find me. _   
The voices scream.

Lance gets to his feet, feels himself brittle and broken.

_ I'll mend you. _

The voices sounds like pain incarnate, twisting empathy from the pit of his soul. Someone is suffering. Someone needs him.

_ Find me. _

The voices scream again, and though Lance drags his feet, to the abyss he goes nevertheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 02: Ripcord  
> Find me.  
> The voice screams and though Lance drags his feet, to the abyss he goes nevertheless.


End file.
